Transfigurations

Welcome to Transfigurations! This blog is intended to serve the orthodox Anglican community and the wider Christian community. We pray that all that is posted here will be faithful to the Scriptures as the inspired word of God, speak the truth in love, edify, bless and transform this local body of Christ, and be an impetus for revival, repentance, prayer and intercession!

Thursday, February 04, 2016

Anglicans Confront Challenge of Islam; The Fellowship of the Suffering...more links

Anglicans Confront Challenge of Islam
Christianity and Islam together comprise the world’s two largest faiths, each monotheistic and centered upon the importance of proselytization – and in many parts of the world, they are on a collision course.

“The prospects for religious war in the next decade are extremely high unless groups like Boko Haram and ISIS are uprooted,” warned Baylor University History Professor Philip Jenkins.

Jenkins, an Episcopalian, was one of seven speakers presenting at the annual Mere Anglicanism Conference January 28-30 at the Charleston Music Hall in Charleston, South Carolina. Mere Anglicanism is the kind of rare event that attracts a cross-section of participants from both the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church in North America, as well as overseas Anglicans and the local Diocese of South Carolina...

A.S. Haley: Report on Mere Anglicanism 2016 (Part I) The theme of this year's Mere Anglicanism Conference in Charleston, South Carolina was "The Cross and the Crescent: the Gospel and the Challenge of Islam." Over the course of four sessions, seven speakers gave the sold-out audience a comprehensive view of Islamic ideology and history, along with the understanding and tools which Christians need in their personal dealings with Muslims.

The Conference was carefully balanced. Two of the speakers analyzed the tenets of Islam and their contrasts with those of Christianity; two of the speakers spoke to the historical and present-day conflicts between Islamic countries and Western ones; two offered insights and approaches to discussing religion with followers of Mohammed, garnered from their years of experience in dealing with Muslims from all walks of life; and the seventh speaker offered a moving personal testimony to his own conversion from Islam to Christianity -- a decision which cost him his closest ties to his own family. In order to keep my report easier to follow, I shall divide it into two parts. I will first discuss those speakers who gave analytical and historical critiques of Islam, and then cover those who offered pragmatic advice in the second part....

The Fellowship of The Suffering
Those who previously were uninformed about – or in denial of – the severity of the trials that face Christians around the world have had to come to grips with the graphic images of martyred men in orange jumpsuits on a Libyan seashore. Multiply those martyrs by the millions and spread them throughout punishment and prison camps in North Korea, scorched-earth villages in Sudan, bomb-blasted churches in Pakistan, house churches and police stations in China, corpse-lined streets in northern Nigeria, etcetera, and it’s the Fellowship of The Suffering.

As the Institute on Religion and Democracy’s Religious Liberty Director for 22 years, I have been privileged to know great sorrow for my persecuted brothers and sisters. The sorrow has been great because the persecution and death of fellow Christians is overwhelming in scale. And some sorrow has been great because it was more personal...

The UN committee declared abortion a “human right” in the woman’s case and said the country was wrong to deny her an abortion, according to Mic. The decision involved the 2001 case of a 17-year-old Peruvian woman whose unborn baby was diagnosed with anencephaly, a neurological condition that is usually fatal, the report states. The young woman, “K.L.,” wanted to abort her unborn baby, but Peruvian doctors refused. Abortion is illegal in Peru except when the life of the mother is threatened.

K.L. later gave birth to her child who lived for four days outside the womb, the report states. K.L.’s mother claimed her daughter “sank into a deep depression” because she was “forced” to allow her baby to live rather than allowed to abort the child, according to the report.

Her case went to the UN committee where her lawyers argued that Peru subjected the young mother to “cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment” by not allowing her to abort her unborn child, the Huffington Post reports. The committee ruled in K.L.’s favor in 2005, and in December 2015, it forced Peru to pay reparations to the young woman, the report states. The UN Human Rights Committee said Peru violated the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights by not allowing K.L. to kill her unborn child. Reports do not indicate the amount that the committee forced Peru to pay the young woman...

The Gospel of John isn't the only book of the Bible being archaeologically verified in the immediate area. As the Review tells readers, "the origins of the Siloam Pool reach back even further in history — at least seven centuries before the time of Jesus."..

The proposed rule, issued by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, says that it is aimed at banning discrimination against transgender individuals under the Obama administration’s Affordable Care Act...

Why Mass Muslim Migration Eviscerates Western Liberalism ...Indeed, many on the Left have completely abandoned assimilation, which they regard only as a synonym for “racism,” “xenophobia,” and “white supremacy,” while worshipping their religions of multiculturalism, diversity, and tolerance. It’s likely because of the global Left’s obsessive, coercive commitment to these principles that German police attempted to cover up the sexual assault epidemic—something authorities in other European nations have also been doing—to protect refugees from any perceived “discrimination.”

While there may be no apparent threat in admitting fleeing Muslim families to the United States, liberals are creating an environment for potentially deadly anti-American sentiment to fester when they encourage migrants to simultaneously preserve their native culture and abhor their new American one.

ISIS and other terror groups have already proven their digital arms extend across the Atlantic and into the United States. The San Bernardino shooters, for instance, were born in the United States but became radicalized domestically, as evidenced by their communication with overseas terror groups prior to the massacre. Who’s to say ISIS or another terror organization won’t similarly manipulate future Muslim-Americans?...

Wednesday, February 03, 2016

Anglican Unscripted Episode 216

Feb 2, 2016Anglican Unscripted is the only video newscast in the Anglican Church. Each Episode Kevin, George, Allan and Peter bring you news and prospective from around the globe. Please Donate - http://anglicanink.com/donate

Scores of charred corpses and bodies with bullet wounds littered the streets from Saturday night's attack on Dalori village just 5 kilometers (3 miles) from Maiduguri, the birthplace of Boko Haram and the biggest city in the northeast, according to survivors and soldiers...

The new receipts show that Planned Parethood charges for each body part obtained, as pro-life advocates had maintained all along...

Their Sexual Proclivities Are Killing Them ...MSM [men who have sex with men] will continue to insist they are just like everyone else. They will insist they have been with their current lover for ten, twenty, thirty years. But even MSM are beginning to admit that this, too, is nothing more than propaganda. Their sally into marital bliss is a sham and not much more. Some call it the “dirty little secret” of the MSM world, that they want the white picket fence and marital fidelity when what they really want are open relationships where they can have multiple partners often quite anonymously.

MSM have wanted desperately to shield the normal population from the reality of their sordid lives and one reason is they do not want us to know how disease ridden is their “community.” Their sexual proclivities are costing the rest of us billions of dollars a year in direct medical costs and billions more in lost productivity. And they will insist all along that their sexual practices cannot change, should not change, since these practices are a part of who they are...

"Our licence committee has approved an application from Dr Kathy Niakan of the Francis Crick Institute to renew her laboratory's research licence to include gene editing of embryos," the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) said in a statement.

"As with all embryos used in research, it is illegal to transfer them to a woman for treatment."...

Billions spent, but fewer people are using public transportation in Southern California ...The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the region's largest carrier, lost more than 10% of its boardings from 2006 to 2015, a decline that appears to be accelerating. Despite a $9-billion investment in new light rail and subway lines, Metro now has fewer boardings than it did three decades ago, when buses were the county's only transit option...